Quake shakes central South Africa, one dead

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A 5.3 magnitude earthquake hit central South Africa on Tuesday, killing at least one man who died when a wall collapsed on top of him, according to emergency services.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the tremor was centred in Orkney, a town around 120 km (70 miles) southwest of Johannesburg, an area with a high concentration of deep gold mines.

“One of the buildings collapsed on a man believed to be in his 30s … by the time paramedics arrived there was nothing they could do for him,” Werner Vermaak, spokesman for emergency service provider ER24, told local television.

ER24 and South African rescue services confirmed that no miners were trapped underground, alleviating earlier concerns that workers were stuck in shafts.

Officials at AngloGold Ashanti, Harmony Gold, Gold Fields and Sibanye Gold said they had felt the tremors in their headquarters but had so far received no reports of anything untoward in their mines.

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The area around Johannesburg is not prone to seismic activity but it is home to some of the deepest gold mines in the world. The quake is the largest in the southern Africa region since a 7.0 tremor in Zimbabwe in 2006.

(Reporting by Ed Cropley and Joe Brock; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

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